


you are humanity, bleeding (we all wait for when this world drains you dry)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [14]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14722919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: Jarvis calls her from Tony's phone, tells her to come over, that there's been an accident, so she's left with fear crawling up her throat the whole way there.  It doesn't die down until she sees him, and even then it doesn't make her feel better, because she has to pick her way through shards of glass to get to him.





	you are humanity, bleeding (we all wait for when this world drains you dry)

In the end, the list goes like this:

One pile of boxes being loaded into the back of a bullet-proof semi truck.

Two faulty weapons, buried somewhere in the middle that were turned just the right way as the truck started moving.

Three people killed- one SI tech (female), one driver (male), and one engineer who just stopped down to reaffirm lunch plans with the tech (also female).

Two kids whose mother won't come home.  Three kids without a father.  One newly wed who now has to figure out the semantics of burying his wife, which is one of those things you have no idea how to do, because people who are young never really learn how to believe in the possibility in unhappy endings.

 

 

 

She was the one to tell Tony.  Pepper couldn't figure out if she really was the best person for the job ( _this isn't my job, she keeps saying, right before she does everything they ask of her_ ) or if Stane really couldn't bring himself to care, but either way, she was the one left to ask Jarvis to turn down the music to the garage and pull Tony out from under the hood of some fancy car he went and bought on impulse.

He must have known that something was wrong from the look on her face, because he doesn't give her a hard time for interrupting him like he normally does.  That, and the fact that she has no paper work.  Pepper always comes with paperwork.

"What's wrong?  What happened?"  He reaches for her, then stops just short of making her look at him, his fingers just barely resting against the inside of her wrist.  "Are you alright?"

 _Are you alright, did something happen, did someone hurt you, are you ill, can I help, let me help, Pepper, I want to fix this,_ but he can't, because this isn't her or her pain and she wouldn't let him try, anyways.  This time, there was no way to fix what had happened.

"It's not me.  It's about SI."  She can see the relief crash over his face, the moment where he decides that this is not something he has to worry about, and that's horrible, too, because she hates how she is reaffirming his idea that all the worst things in life will happen to him.  "There's be an accident."

She doesn't want to tell him.  Somewhere in the back of her mind Pepper understands that CEO, no matter how reluctant, Tony needs to know.  That they need to sit down and start doing damage control, reassure the public that this was a one time thing, and hopefully be able to truthfully tell that this accident was at no fault of SI.  But the other part of her, the human part, wants to keep this hidden, turn off all the tv's and tablets and close all the windows, keep him safe from this for one more day.

But that wouldn't be getting the job done, and Pepper likes her job, likes being able to say that she does it well, so she tells him.  About the boxes and the explosion.  About the tech and the driver and the engineer. About the families.

"Initial reports say that Stark Industries weren't at fault,"  She says, after a beat passes and Tony does nothing but stare down at the wrench in his hands.

"Yes, we were."  He's got that white-knuckle grip again, and Pepper is half afraid of him even though she knows she has no reason to be.

"No, Tony."  She reaches out to him but stops herself, so her arm just hands in the air between them.  "I just said that the reports say there was nothing we could have done differently.  This just happens sometime."

Just happens.  Like this was a regular thing, like a heart attack on SI premises or an earthquake, something natural instead of violent and destructive.  Pepper had never had to look at what she was helping to send out into the world, but now the proof was laid out before her in the form of three death certificates and she can't avoid it anymore: these were horrible things they were creating, hateful things birthed by a loving man.  They could kill the world a million times over and not run out of stock.

"These were SI people.  I'm charge of them.  I'm responsible for them.  Didn't you say that to me once?"  She had, but not like this, not like she was rolling out bodies at his feet and expecting him to shoulder their weight.  But he would.  He's taken on the burden of everything else.  "Everything that happens to them that's on me.  And these people, their deaths, their pain- that's on me, too."

She wanted to tell him once more that it wasn't his fault, but she couldn't find anything to say, so she only watched, look on as he swept the wrenches and bolts and cannisters full of pens off his workshop table, watched while he kicked out at the side of his brand new car hard enough that she suspected he might have broke something.  It's like he thinks breaking things will patch those people back together, so she lets him go, follows the tornado of his movements without flinching- from the workshop to the counter top to the cars, then to his tablet, all of it smashed and dented and destroyed and all of it so easily replaced.

(Nothing is permanent to him.   Pepper's wondered if anything has really ever mattered to him, when he can always go out and buy a dozen more.  Could you be proud of things, when you could just replace it with something better in the next second?   Could you ever know what it means to hold onto something when you never need to make anything last?)

"Just make it better,"  He says, when he does, and Pepper is already talking about press conferences and PR stunts, so he waves her away, making a sound in the back of his throat that reminds her of an angry cat.  "Not for me.  For them."

"I want to help you, too."  She steps closer, hearing that familiar  _not my job, not my job, not my job_ circling around in her head.  "I can do both."

Tony only stares at her.  There's grease staining his hands, just like there was on the first day they met, but this time, she wouldn't have cared, even if she could never wash it away.  "If you want to help me,"  He says, slowly, and Pepper is nodding, thinking  _yes, yes, help me know how to fix this_ when he pushes her outstretched hand back down to her side, as gentle as he had been destructive only moments before.  "Then leave me alone."

 

 

 

She leaves him alone.

All day.

It's a testament to how strange this job is that the constant banging and erupting from below aren't bothersome to her, even if this time she finds herself tilting her head to listen in, like she could tell if he is alright by the frequency of his sounds.  There is a heavy cover of rock music, but that does not stop her from trying to hear him, like she could possibly be able to tell if he was alright from the sound of his screams.

(Once, she slips off her heels and tiptoes down the stairs, watches him work from the hallway, tucked behind the doorway where he cannot see her.  She stands there for the better part of an hour, watching him work, like he could create enough to fill the holes that those people had left in the world.  Like he could make up for it, if he makes enough magic pour from his hands.)

Pepper had been told to fix things, so that's what she does, as much as was possible in a situation like this.  She makes arrangements to pay for the funerals of the two families who let her, sends flowers to the third.  Sets up a college trust for each of the kids with Tony's money, to be anonymously given to them when they turn eighteen.  Pays for the hospital bills for the fourth man involved in the explosion, who had ran over to drag his friend out of the fire even though he must have known it was already too late.

It was the best she could do.  It was not fixed, but it was as close as she could get it.

"Tony?"  She makes her steps extra loud, and when she rounds the corner, she finds him stretched out against the leather couch, an oily rag thrown over his eyes.  Pepper itches to rip it off of him and force him to get a shower, and then maybe to make him eat something healthy and then go to bed, but she doesn't.  It's not her place.  It's not her job.  And she doesn't think it'd be all that helpful, either, which is the only reason she makes herself stand there.  "I made some arrangements."  He doesn't answer.  Doesn't even move his head to follow her voice.  She would have been worried, but she can still see his fingers tapping against the cement floor.  "They're on the desk here, if you want to look."

Pepper stands there for another minute, then two, then finally makes her way back to the door.  It would have to be enough for now, and maybe in the morning, he would feel better.  "Night, Tony."

She waits, but he doesn't answer.

 

 

 

 

 

Even though she knows better, even though she wants nothing more than to finally go to bed and put this horrible day behind her, Pepper watches the news.

They aren't blaming Stark Industries.  Pepper can breathe a sigh of relief at that, that they are not demanding for someone's head to be served up on a silver platter as the scapegoat for what had happened.  She would have to be one of the ones to sit through a meeting with Stane and Tony while they made that choice, and she would have to be the one to deal with the aftermath of that conversation.  Instead, they are only talking about how it is a tragic accident that is sometimes unavoidable when you take part in this type of work, showing shots of the explosion and then calling for prayers for the families of those who were affected, when what those families wanted was probably just to be left alone.

(There's a part of her, a horrible part that Pepper is never able to turn off even when she wants to, that is thinking about how it's a good thing that this happened right after Tony had made an appearance at that children's hospital, when the public viewpoint of them was already good.  God help them if this had gone down in the middle of one of his scandals.)

She is itching to text him.  To call and make up some excuse, just to sneak in another consoling line about how it is not his fault.  To maybe tell him that this will all blow over soon, which is what he should want, as CEO, but she knows is the last thing he wants to hear.

He never wants this to blow over.

For as long as he lives, Tony will never forget their names.  

Pepper wonders if its a terrible thing, to walk through life loving like that.

 

 

 

She should have texted him.  Pepper knew that, even as she went to bed and drifted off to sleep, but she was too busy making excuses about how she had no idea what to say, how there was nothing she  _could_ say, that she didn't stop to think that he might have needed someone who was willing to reach out to him, even if they didn't do it in the right way.  

When the phone call wakes her up in the middle of the night, Pepper is already reaching for her keys and wondering which of his favorite haunts Tony had stumbled to this time, how drunk he might have gotten in a few short hours and how terrible this would look if anyone caught him outside, partying on the night of the accident.  

 _This is what you get for being a coward,_ she is thinking, remembering all those half formed texts that she didn't send.   _Cowards don't get to sleep._

Only isn't not some bartender or security guard or a girl she'd never met, it was only Jarvis, speaking in a tone that she would have called regretful, if she thought that Tony would think to program anything with regret.

"Miss Potts."  Pepper didn't know he could call.  It would have made things easier, if she knew that Jarvis was capable of answering the phone.  "I apologize for bothering you at this late hour, but emergency override delegates that I should call you in the case of an incident where Tony is unable to come to the phone."

Turns out, Pepper didn't know a lot of things.  She didn't know a computer could be both apologetic and demanding all at once.  She didn't know that there was an override protocol whose sole function was to call her to come and make it better.  And she must not have known how much she really cared about Tony, to have those words scare her so damn bad, make her feel like the ground was shaking underneath her feet.

"Of course."  She doesn't ask what's wrong.  Later, in the car on the too long drive to his place, she would think about how stupid that was, because she had no idea how to get a hold of JARVIS again.  "I'll be there soon."

 

 

It's a long drive, one where she hits every red light and speeds through stop signs without really thinking to check if anyone was coming, taking turns at speeds that sends the contents of her back seat flying.  Still, she doesn't slow down, because there is fear crawling up her throat and this idea that she can't shake, this feeling that this time was not like the other times, that helping him now would not be as simple as forcing him to get some sleep or to remind him to eat.

That maybe this time, something has happened that she will not be able to fix.

The fear doesn't die down until she storms through the kitchen and into the living room to see him sprawled out between the piano and the coffee table, and even then it doesn't really die at all, because he is sitting in the midst of shattered glass, staring down at his cut and bleeding hands.

( _His hands,_ she thinks, as she picks herself across the broken glass, wishing she had worn shoes other than flip flops, because she can feel a bit of it prick at her heels.   _His beautiful, terrible hands._ )

"Oh, Tony."  She kneels down in front of him and draws his arms towards her.  It is only later that she notices the way the glass had ground into her knees and the blood stains on her favorite pair of pajama shorts.  Right now there is only him and his bleeding hands and blood shot eyes.  "What did you do to yourself?"

"Don't."  He tries to shove her away, but all it does is make him have to catch at her shoulders when she loses her balance.  "You're going to hurt yourself."

"You're hurt."  She was angry at him.  Angry and worried and scared, because there are only so many times you can be woken up in the middle of the night.  Only so many times can you bend backward in the hopes of healing someone only to have them turn around and do the exact same thing the very next day.  There's a limit to how much you can care, even when it's Tony.  "Why shouldn't I be able to do the same thing?"

(What would happen if she did?  If she was the one with all this pain bottled up inside her, who comes to work drunk and shaking, who has nights where she calls him and pleads to come into work because she cannot sleep instead of other way around, who needed him this much?  Would he still want her around, or would he get tired of her just like he had warned her he might?)

"I didn't mean to."  His hands had tightened around her arms when she talked about hurting herself, and now there are bloody hand prints circling around her wrists.  It's disgusting.  She wants to wash it away.  "I just blew up the window."

Strangely enough, Pepper hadn't noticed the skylight and how broken it was.  All she had noticed was Tony, sitting here, hurting, and thinking about how she had to be the one to make it better.  Now, though, she noticed, the gaping hole in the ceiling and the few pieces of glass that were still hanging on, threatening to fall down on them at any moment.  

 _He probably didn't even think twice before aiming at it,_ She thinks, surprised at how bitter the thought it.   _Who cares what you destroy, when you have money to put it back together?  Never mind the fact that he won't be the one fixing it.  It's me he's piled extra work onto, not himself.  Always me, here in the middle of the night, cleaning up his messes._

"Come on Tony."  She murmurs, pulling him back to his feet, and it is only then she notices the headache pounding in her temples and how tired she is, the biting pain in her knees and how her heels were bleeding from where the shards had flipped up and cut her, the blood staining her clothes that would never come out.  "Let's get you cleaned up."

 

 

 

She fixes him.

That's what she's here to do, after all, fixes him even though his blood is drying on her arms and the skin on her knees has been scratched to shreds, fixes him even though she had hurt herself in the attempt.

Tony seems to know that she's angry, because he doesn't argue against it when she drags him down to the workshop and starts rummaging for the first aid kit.

"Where is it, Tony?"  She's being loud.  Loud and angry and her words are biting, snapping across the room at him.  They're so angry they make him flinch away from her, and Pepper doesn't want that, but its what they are left with, because there is only so much a person can take.'

"Where's what?"

Pepper wonders if he is being difficult on purpose.  "The first aid kit."  

"I don't have one."  She must have glared at him, because he only shrugs, holding out those bleeding hands in a gesture of surrender and only succeeding in spreading blood over the floor.  "Never saw the need?"

"Jesus fucking Christ, do you ever think to give a damn about your own life?"  It's the first time she's ever sworn in front of him, and certainly the first time she has ever raised her voice to that extent.  It's punctuated by her slamming a drawer closed and throwing a fistful of band aids at him, which he ignores, and they both watch them flutter down to the floor.  "Do you?"  She snatches up a band air and holds it out to him, so upset that her hand is shaking.  "Take it from me, Tony.  Take it."

She is being cruel, now.  She can see it in the way that he is staring at her, like this thing between is breaking into pieces.  

(Maybe, she would tell herself later, maybe that's she wanted.  Smash it all beyond repair so she no longer has to hurt, so she never has to see the day when she figures out how much she can care for a man like him.)

He doesn't take it.  Tony was always the more stubborn one between them, so Pepper is the first to break, dropping her arm and gathering the rest of them, turning on the faucet with jerky movements and grabbing for his hands, shoving them under the water, watching the pink swirl down the drain until there is nothing left.

"I just can't keep putting you back together when you seem intent on tearing yourself apart,"  Pepper says instead of apologizing, wrapping his hands in one of the few clean towels she was able to fine.  "That's all."

 

 

 

"You never asked why I don't like being handed things,"  Tony says, right when Pepper is putting the last bandage on the palm of his hand.  She spends an extra long moment making sure that it is positioned exactly right before looking at him.  "You're the only person who hasn't."

Pepper sighed, a long and heavy exhale.  "Why don't you like being handed things?"

"I don't know.  I've tried to figure it out, and-,"  He shrugs, helplessly, and the motion is already sending the edge of the band aids on his fore arm curling upwards, all her hard work already cancelling out.  "It's like my brain just said no and I can't make my hands find the override switch."

She wants to make him feel better.  She wants to say sorry.  She wants to kiss him, test out Stane's theory that she's the only thing that can help him feel better once and for all.  Pepper doesn't do any of it.

"It doesn't matter."  She is almost on the verge of crying.  Almost.  Pepper wants to go through her routine, but she can't, can't redo her make up because she is not wearing any and can't drink coffee because there is none and can't redo her hair because her hands are covered in his blood.  "People hand me everything, anyways.  That's what an assistant is there for."

"I'm just saying that I was always like this.  Always had something wired wrong, or missing, or that got knocked loose along the way."  He has his hands on her arms again, exactly three inches higher than when they were sitting in the middle of the broken glass, which she can tell because she has not been able to clean herself up yet and the smudged hand prints are still there.  "You're not going to be able to fix me."

"I'm not trying to fix you.  There's nothing to fix, Tony."   _Not yet.  Not always.  But sometimes, it feels like you are breaking right in front of me, right under my hands, and there will be no way to patch you back together.  All I'm trying to do is stop it before it starts._

He doesn't answer, just leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, and Pepper knows without having it said that she is being dismissed for the night.  Its unfair, but it's what she's come to expect, so she just turns on her heel and walks out, not turning around even though she knew he was watching for exactly that, for the moment that she would decide to come running back to him.

(She doesn't turn back but she does not leave, either, not like he was clearly expecting her to, because by the time she would have gotten home she would have just had to turn around and come back, so she just cleans herself off, staying in the shower until she is confident that she has used up all his hot water and then crept back out to where the ceiling had shattered, curling up the couch and phone in hand, waiting until it's late enough that she can call someone who can come fix it.)

(Pepper knows that when he does fix it, he's not even going to notice.  She doesn't know why she bothers.) 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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